


Sacrifice

by 00AwkwardPenguin00



Series: Dragon of the Yuyan [30]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula is her own warning, Canon Temporary Character Death, Episode: s02e20 The Crossroads of Destiny, Gen, if you've seen the episode you know what happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27656165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/00AwkwardPenguin00/pseuds/00AwkwardPenguin00
Summary: Their family is scattered, and somehow Azula has entered Ba Sing Se. Katara doesn't know how things can get much worse.And then they do.
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Iroh & Katara & Sokka & Zuko, Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Dai Li, Azula & The Gaang (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & The Gaang (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Dragon of the Yuyan [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582384
Comments: 227
Kudos: 1826





	Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).



> Hey, just going to pop this here to say that this is the last installment that I have completed, and with the ridiculous American holiday of Thanksgiving next weekend, I feel like this is a good place to stick a pin in until I have my posting buffer back. So in two weeks (December 5, 2020), I will post Part 31 of the _Dragon of the Yuyan_ series. See you then!

Katara can't figure out how things had gone so _wrong_.

The morning after Appa had been rescued and returned, they had stormed the Earth King's palace complex, not willing to let their advantage slip. The Earth King had taken some convincing, but after being shown the Dai Li headquarters under Lake Laogai (and Katara _really_ doesn't want to think about the brainwashing victims and methods they'd discovered down there) and the debris of the giant drill that had tried to breach the Outer Wall, he had ordered Long Feng be arrested for crimes against the Earth Kingdom, and had listened gravely to Sokka's plan to invade the Fire Nation on the eclipse.

Maybe they shouldn't have split up. Aang had needed to go to the Eastern Air Temple to meet with a Guru who could help him master the Avatar State. Toph's mother had wanted to reconnect with her. Dad's fleet had been working in Chameleon Bay. Zuko's Uncle had been running a tea shop in the Upper Ring. They had been scattered to the winds, and Azula had somehow gotten into the city under everyone's noses.

She's so angry she could split an iceberg.

The entrance to her glowing crystal prison is opened, and a harsh voice sneers, "Brought you some company!" A body is tossed down, resolving into Zuko at her feet.

"Zuko! Oh no, did they get Iroh too?" Katara yelps, crouching down to help him sit up.

Zuko leans against a spear of crystal, breathing deeply. His face is scraped, and the way he avoids moving his torso speaks to bruising, perhaps even cracked or broken ribs. She wishes she had some water on her, she hates seeing any of her friends in pain.

**_Uncle got away,_** he signs stiffly, jaw set and brow creased in pain. **_I was a moron and didn't retreat when I should have._** He's dressed formally, not quite as fancy as their party clothes, but certainly better than his general day wear among the family. His weapons are missing as well—he doesn’t have his bow or quiver or his swords, and she can’t tell if he’s carrying any of his knives, not even the fancy dagger his uncle gave him that he hardly ever lets out of his sight. After over half a year, Katara has _never_ seen Zuko so disarmed. It’s nearly as frightening as realizing that the Kyoshi Warrior standing in the Earth King’s throne room is actually _Azula_.

He must see the question on her face, because he grimaces and signs, _**Uncle got invited to serve tea to the Earth King, and I tagged along. No weapons allowed. Obviously it was a setup.**_ He sighs in that odd, silent way he has. **_Azula always lies. She’s taken over the Dai Li, and she’s half a step away from taking over Ba Sing Se entirely._**

“So what’s the plan for getting out of here?” Katara asks, settling herself beside him and shamelessly leeching off his firebender body heat. Zuko gives her a halfhearted smirk that says he knows full well what she’s doing, but obligingly deepens his breathing to increase the warmth anyway.

_**We wait** **,**_ he signs, with a sneer of disgust. _**If we try to find our own way out, we risk getting really lost. Our best bet is for Toph or Aang to lead the rest of the squad to us.**_

“Where are we, anyway?” Katara asks, looking around. The crystals cast an eerie pale green glow, lighting up their prison almost to daylight levels.

_**We’re under Ba Sing Se, in the oldest part of the city,**_ Zuko answers. His eyes are closed and he’s leaning his head back against the crystal. He looks terribly pale, and Katara worries that he might have a concussion. What did those creepy hat bastards do to him?

She can’t keep track of time in this creepy glowing cavern, but it can’t have been more than a few hours when Katara becomes aware of an odd rumbling sound. Beside her, Zuko goes tense.

The wall crumbles away to reveal Aang and Iroh, and Katara nearly drowns in her relief.

“Aang!” She leaps to her feet and tackles him in a hug. “Did you bring any water? Zuko’s hurt.”

“Is he okay?” Aang asks worriedly, handing over one of her spare waterskins. She quickly straps it on and races back to Zuko’s side, gloving her hands in water as she goes. Iroh, incongruously armed to the teeth with Zuko’s weapons, is kneeling on his nephew’s other side, running a hand through Zuko’s black hair.

“He definitely has some cracked ribs, and I’m pretty sure he also has a concussion,” Katara says, focusing on the ribs first. She knows enough about both firebending and Zuko now that she knows he’d want to be able to breathe freely before anything else. Thankfully they’re an easy fix, and she moves the water up to his head. He definitely has a concussion, and she does her best to soothe it away.

When she finally bends the water back into the waterskin, Zuko looks _leagues_ better, and is able to stand up straight and breathe deeply with no sign of pain. He’s still worryingly pale, and his hands tremble just the slightest amount as he shucks off his formal outer robe and takes his weapons from Iroh, but Katara puts that down to the stress of the situation.

“Sokka and Toph went to warn the Earth King about the coup,” Aang says, taking his glider-staff back from Iroh as well. “We need to get out of here and go find them.”

Everyone’s on board with that plan, so they follow Aang and his seismic sense through the eerily glowing tunnels to a massive cavern ringed with ruined stone structures, giant spears of crystal and rock jutting up from the floor or down from the ceiling, and slim streams of waterfalls that flow into obviously human-formed canals. It’s an absolutely stunning space, and if they hadn’t been running for their lives Katara would have _loved_ to explore it more.

Unfortunately, they _are_ running for their lives, as the spear of fire that Aang only just manages to deflect demonstrates.

Azula has changed into an outfit that makes her look hilariously like a Junior Dai Li scout, from the stolen Kyoshi Warriors’ armor she’d been wearing when Katara had arrived to deliver the finalized invasion plans from the Council of Five. Her face is set and cold, and she glares daggers at Zuko and Iroh.

“So not only is the Prince of the Fire Nation a full traitor, but the Dragon of the West is as well,” she says icily. “Last chance, Zuko. Help me finish what I’ve started, help me capture the Avatar, and you’ll be welcomed home with _honor_.”

For a second that feels like a lifetime, the cavern rings with a charged silence. Katara has no idea how this will fall out: she knows how much Zuko loves and misses his country, his people. But she’s also sure that he loves her and Aang and Sokka and Toph and Iroh just as much. He’s told them many times that their squad, and the troop of Yuyan Archers he’d left behind to join them, are the only real family he has. Would he give all of that up just to go home again? She wants to believe that he won’t, that he understands how important Aang is to the world, but for that one second, heartbreak crosses his face and she can’t be certain at all.

Until he draws his swords and uses them to swipe an arc of golden red flames at Azula.

The naked rage on her face as she dodges is a thing of beauty.

Katara barely has time to take a breath before they’re suddenly surrounded by an entire legion of Dai Li agents, and once again, they’re fighting for their lives. Zuko and Iroh are holding back Azula, fighting in tandem like they’ve never been apart a single day of their lives, while Katara and Aang are doing their best to hold against the onslaught of Dai Li. There’s too many, though, and even as Aang seamlessly incorporates all four elements into the battle, it’s clear to both of them that they’ll be overrun sooner rather than later.

Aang meets her eyes with an expression of desperation and heartbreak that makes Katara’s own heart twist in her chest, and bends himself a glowing crystal cocoon.

Katara wants to be furious with him for _abandoning_ her in the middle of one of the hardest battles they’ve ever faced together, but in order to do that they need to be _alive_ , so she sets herself the task of protecting the cocoon until he comes out.

And _sweet Tui and La_ , he comes out in full Avatar State, eyes and tattoos glowing nearly blinding white, levitating without any visible airbending form, looking for all the world like a god come to earth. Katara can't help but stare in awe, and she's not the only one.

And then lightning strikes.

And then Aang falls.

And then she's riding a tidal wave to catch him, mind whirling with panic and terror, and the water drains away as she frantically searches for his breath, for his pulse, but there's nothing, nothing _Tui and La please help me help him help us––_

And then Zuko suddenly appears in front of her, golden eyes wide with the terror she feels in her bones. And then Iroh is in front of both of them, facing Azula and her smoking fingertips and her horde of Dai Li, fancy Earth Kingdom robes singed and dirty and queue half undone down his back.

"Go!" He roars over his shoulder at them. "Zuko, take them and go! I'll hold them off as long as I can!"

Zuko's eyes fill with tears, but his expression hardens as he yanks Aang out of her arms and shoves her up and towards the closest waterfall tunnel. It's with exquisite numbness that she focuses on bending the water around them to lift them up, to carry them up the waterfall and then through the tunnel to burst through a manhole in a random Upper Ring plaza like a geyser.

They sit on the stone and just breathe for a moment, until Katara checks Aang's pulse again and doesn't find it, and then she's yanking the bison whistle from her sash and blowing as hard as she can, and when she runs out of breath Zuko takes it from her, takes a huge breath ( _firebending comes from the breath_ she remembers), and blows until his face turns purple.

Appa appears in the sky like magic, Toph and Sokka and Momo and the Earth King and his bear holding onto the bison's back for dear life, and Zuko drags her to her feet while hefting Aang in his arms, and they race up Appa's tail. The bison barely waits for them to settle on his head before he lifts off again, soaring into the peaceful Ba Sing Se night.

Katara lays Aang against Appa's neck hump, and pulls out her Spirit Oasis talisman. Whispering a prayer to any spirit or god who will listen, she bends the water out and sets it whirling in her hand until it glows blue ( _blue like fire, blue like lightning_ ), and then presses it to the raw wound on Aang's back. After a second that feels like centuries, his arrows flash white, and his heart and breathing abruptly restart. He shudders with a tiny moan, and she leans him back to see his eyes flutter open and a tiny smile cross his face before he passes out.

"The Earth Kingdom has fallen," the Earth King intones mournfully, as Appa turns and heads south.

Katara clutches Aang in her arms and sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> Thus ends Book 2
> 
> Next time (12/05/2020): **Shock**
> 
> Did I rip out your heart (again)? Scream at me [here](https://awkwardpenguinproductions.tumblr.com).


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